Donald Trump has claimed US allies could send a “heavy force” into Gaza if Hamas “continues to act badly”. It comes with his vice president in Israel – but JD Vance tells Sky News his visit there was planned, and not due to ceasefire tensions. Follow live below.
Tuesday 21 October 2025 17:23, UK
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Our military analyst Michael Clarke has been reacting to JD Vance’s speech on Sky News.
Much of what the US vice president said was “very assertive optimism”, despite there only being a “narrow route” through which the ceasefire in Gaza holds and the next stages of the agreement are implemented, Clarke says.
“We didn’t get any detail out of that [speech], other than a restatement of the fact that no American troops will be involved in Gaza, that the coordination centre is the hub through which all else will happen, [and] that Arab states are looking very carefully at participating in this stabilisation force,” he says.
However, the presence of Vance, US envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner all together in Israel is a positive development for the US, as they are more likely than any other individuals to “shift the dial a bit” in ceasefire discussions over the next 48 hours, Clarke adds.
Adam Parsons, our Middle East correspondent, was at that JD Vance news conference just now in southern Israel, where he asked the vice president two questions.
First, Parsons asked whether Vance had travelled to Israel because he thought Israel had overreacted with its military to the killing of two soldiers in the Gaza Strip.
“My visit had nothing to do with events of the past 48 hours,” Vance replied.
“We had actually tried to plan this visit, frankly, months ago, and now we thought this would be a good time to do it. It ended up working out – as you know, sometimes calendars are difficult, especially when you’re the vice president of the United States.
“But I wanted to come, I wanted to check in on things. I wanted to, you know, talk to the troops who are working very hard to coordinate this massive relief effort.
“And I wanted to just see how things were going.”
Vance said he would try to help troops now stationed in the region, after hearing their concerns on his trip.
Secondly, Parsons asked whether the vice president now believes it is feasible to have a government structure in Gaza that does not include strong Palestinian voices, after the reaction to the ceasefire so far.
Vance replied: “On your question about what the ultimate, you know, authority in Gaza looks like? I don’t know the answer to that question.
“And I think, what’s so cool, what’s so amazing, about what these guys have done is that we’re creating a governance structure that is very flexible to what happens on the ground in the future.
“We need to reconstitute Gaza. We need to reconstruct Gaza.
“We need to make sure that both the Palestinians living in Gaza, but also the Israelis, are able to live in some measure of security and stability.
“We’re doing all those things simultaneously.
“And then I think once we’ve got to a point where both the Gazans and our Israeli friends can have some measure of security, then we’ll worry about what the long-term governance of Gaza is.
“Let’s focus on security, rebuilding, giving people some food and medicine.”
JD Vance was asked about Hamas releasing the remaining dead Israeli hostages from Gaza.
Earlier this afternoon, the group said it would release the remains of two more Israeli hostages tonight, with 15 hostages still claimed by Israel to be missing.
“It is a focus of everybody here to get those bodies back home to their families so that they can have a proper burial,” Vance says.
“That said, this is difficult – this is not going to happen overnight.
“Some of these hostages are buried under thousands of pounds of rubble. Some of the hostages, nobody even knows where they are.
“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work to get them and that doesn’t mean we don’t have confidence that we will.
“It’s just a reason to counsel in favour of a little bit of patience. This is going to take a little bit of time.”
JD Vance has been taking questions from reporters following his speech in Israel.
He says what troops will be deployed on the ground in Israel as part of the ceasefire agreement is “going to be a question the Israelis have to agree to”, and that he is sure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “will have opinions about that”.
The US vice president says the US believes “everybody has a role to play here” in both providing financial support for Gaza and in its eventual reconstruction.
Speaking about the ceasefire holding, Vance says: “What we’ve seen in the past week gives me great optimism the ceasefire is going to hold, and if we get from where we were a week ago to a long term, durable peace between Israel and Gaza, there are going to be hills and valleys, there are going to be moments where it looks like things aren’t going particularly well.”
“Right now I feel very optimistic. Can I say with 100% certainty that it’s going to work? No, but you don’t do difficult things by only doing what’s 100% certain. You do difficult things by trying,” he adds.
JD Vance thanks the Israeli government for their helpfulness in discussions over the Gaza ceasefire today.
He then discusses what he sees as the negative attitudes towards the ceasefire in the media.
“There is this weird attitude I’ve sensed in the American media, in the Western media, where there’s almost this desire to root for failure, that every time something bad happens and every time that there’s an act of violence, there’s this inclination to say ‘Oh, this is the end of the ceasefire, this is the end of the peace plan’,” he says.
“It’s not the end. It is, in fact, exactly how this is going to have to happen when you have people who hate each other, who have been fighting against each other for a very long time.”
“We are doing very well, we are in a very good place. We’re going to have to keep working on it, but I think we have the team to do exactly that,” Vance adds.
US vice president JD Vance has been speaking from Israel.
He says the current ceasefire in Gaza comes during “a very, very tough situation” for Israelis and Hamas.
But, announcing the opening of the Civilian Military Cooperation Centre, Vance says: “You have Israelis and Americans working hand in hand to try to begin the plan to rebuild Gaza, to implement a long term peace, and to actually ensure that you have security forces on the ground in Gaza, not composed of Americans, who can keep the peace over the long term.
“We’ve got a lot of work left to do. This is going to take a very, very long time.”
Vance landed in Israel this morning to discuss the state of the Gaza ceasefire agreement with Israeli officials.
The US vice president is speaking in Israel amid talks over the ceasefire in Gaza.
Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff is also speaking to the media.
Pictures are coming through of celebrations from a settlement in the West Bank after a freed Israeli hostage came home.
Avinatan Or, 32, was released from Gaza on 13 October when the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas was formally announced.
He was kidnapped from the Nova music festival by Hamas militants in October 2023.
Well-wishers could be seen with placards and Israeli flags as Or was welcomed back to the town of Shilo, where he was born and raised before moving to Tel Aviv.
Three American diplomatic heavyweights – JD Vance, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner – are present on the ground in Israel today.
That’s reflective of wider US concerns about the ceasefire, says our Middle East correspondent Adam Parsons.
“I think the Americans are worried about Israel’s response to Hamas transgressions,” he explains.
Over the weekend, America had been in contact with Israel to urge the government to remain proportionate in its response to a reported attack by Hamas, Parsons notes.
Israel had reacted to the attack with airstrikes that killed dozens of Palestinians.
“I think behind that are nerves that this fragile ceasefire could yet fall apart,” Parsons says.
Watch the video below for his full analysis on Vance’s visit and how it may also relate to the pending second phase of Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan:
The Israeli government has addressed comments made by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Benjamin Netanyahu.
Carney reportedly said he would honour the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu if he travelled to Canada.
“We believe that Prime Minister Carney should, of course, reconsider this and welcome Prime Minister Netanyahu, the leader of the only Jewish state and democratic country in the Middle East, to Canada,” government spokesperson Shosh Bedrosian told reporters today.
Carney responded “Yes” but did not elaborate when asked during an interview on Bloomberg Podcasts, which aired on Friday, whether Canada would arrest Netanyahu, The Times of Israel reported.
Canada was among the countries including the UK to recently recognise Palestinian statehood.
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